Five Hundred Arhats No.158 · The Venerable Dharma (Dharmya) | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.158 The Venerable Dharma (Dharmya)

Dharma is the ancient transliteration of the Sanskrit word dharma, also rendered as dharma—'the teaching, the law'; the name marks one who takes the Dharma as his very body and abides in the true teaching. The venerable appears as an Indian monk with a calm expression, possessing the gravity of one who lives by the Dharma, safeguards it and merges with it; no separate biography is invented.

Painted by Li Zongyi in the freehand Chinese ink (xieyi) tradition, the brushwork is fluent and the ink tones layered from dense to pale, capturing the arhat’s spirit in a few assured strokes. The blank paper itself breathes Zen; figure and spirit are one, blending monastic solemnity with the literati’s ease. Each of the Five Hundred Arhats bears its own name and practice, uniting faith, art and collectibility — an original, non-reproducible hand-painted work.

Size: approx. 100×50cm (4.5 square chi) | Traditional hand-painted Chinese ink Zen Buddhist figure painting | On paper